Rustic Vanity #3: Vanity and Mirrow

Hard to get to the shop some days. I got talked into giving someone an estimates for a kitchen. So I spent a good day calling around for prices on material, drawing plans, and racking my brain trying to remember how I did this. It’s been a few years. Do I really want to do this again? I have managed to get the medicine chest roughed out. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get the doors done and be able to start destressing the alder. I’ll need to get it out of the shop if I end up doing a kitchen. So time becomes a big deal again. With that I guess money is becoming a big deal again to. I’ve really enjoyed taking some time with this vanity and doing it my way. Much of my house has been built with winter breathing down my back and with the bills screaming on my desk. Every thing is paid I just don’t ever know how much I’ll make month to month or even day to day. So maybe just this one kitchen…

Hi Dennis;—-well I hear what your saying about winter. My bills just never stop and then some….however I was encouraged this evening as I was bringing the wood in.. I happened to notice that the light is hanging around longer, makes me kinda happy, since longer days means longer time to work outside!

Dennis, this is the classic conundrum of an artist. Do you do what you want to do, or what you must do?

Imagine poor old Buonarroti (better known as Mike, or Michaelangelo) lying on his back for four years painting the Sistine Chapel. I’m sure at some point he must have muttered – ”What am I doing here? My back is killing me! I would much rather be back in my shop working on that statue of Dave.” But then he remembered his wife and kids back home and the candle wax bills – so on he pressed.

I’m always (well it seems that way) taking on projects I should enjoy, and end up kicking myself for it, and just seem to want to be done and onto the next thing. Somethings snowball, others I lose interest, or patience in, or perhaps more accurately, I get more excited by whats next than what’s now.

I suppose for me, a balance of jobs I want to do, mixed with an (hopefully) equal share of jobs I have to do would be fine – karmically speaking. – one project for the shop, (or house) for each one for a customer… an hour of play, for each hour worked.

Might not be the ideal, might not even seem possible in this country (if we’re working for ‘the man’) but it seems fair and possible…

I am happy to see that we’re practically half-way through february, and I haven’t had to drag out – or rather, use, the snowblower. just a quick shoveling once. Sure it’s cold and the firewood pile is dwindleing – but the sun is rising earlier, and thoughts turn to the garden, which leads to long days, and “plenty of time” to do what we will (if we can turn off the TV that is :)

oh, and to stay a bit closer to topic…. I am enjoying the process of this project, and being somewhat at home in the kitchen, I’ll enjoy following that along too – if you so choose.

I like the looks of the vanity and mirror you are making, looking forward to seeing the finished product. I hear what you are saying about the money speaking louder than the enjoyment of working on your own things.

Hey i was runnin through your blogs and saw a picture of a block plane (or at least it looked like one) Give me the rundown on it. I have one that looks like it and cant get the thing to work right. But then again I guess I have eto be smarter than the plane

Keep plugging away Dennis, you’ll have it your way some day.I feel sorry for all you out there that have to do what they don’t really want to do. If I want to go out in my shop, I go out in my shop, but I don’t have to if I don’t feel like it, but I keep the heat on all the time though, for when I get the urge.

54 reads now. Don’t lose heart, I think it is just rubber necking tendencies that make us look at the controversial stuff first. I read Don’s note, as I scanned it first and saw my name, so I had to read it. Maybe you could add my name to each of your blogs. Just kidding. I read all of your blogs, and enjoy the information, pivotal questions you pose, progressing work, historical view point and things you are pondering.